The semiconductor industry has experienced rapid growth due to improvements in the integration density of a variety of electronic components (e.g., transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.). For the most part, this improvement in integration density has come from shrinking the semiconductor process node (e.g., shrinking the process node towards the sub-20 nm node). Shrinking the semiconductor process node entails reductions in operating voltage and current consumption of electronic circuits developed in the semiconductor process node. For example, operating voltages have dropped from 5V to 3.3V, 2.5V, 1.8V, and even 0.9V.
A resonator is a discrete component that contains a piezoelectric material, such as quartz. The resonator generates an oscillating voltage with high Q (quality factor) and frequency that has low temperature correlation. The resonator is used in many electronic circuits as the basis for one or more clock signals.